THE UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY/THIRD WORLD FORUMSTUDIES IN AFRICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY

The United Nations University's Project on
Transnationalization or Nation-Building in Africa
(1982-1986) was undertaken by a network of African
scholars under the co-ordination of Samir Amin. The
purpose of the Project was to study the possibilities of
and constraints on national autocentric development of
African countries in the context of the world-system into
which they have been integrated. Since the 1970s the
world-system has been in a crisis of a severity and
complexity unprecedented since the end of the Second
World War; the Project examines the impact of this
contemporary crisis on the political, economic and
cultural situation of Africa today. Focusing on the
complex relationship between transnationalization
(namely, the dynamics of the world-system) and
nation-building, which is seen as a precondition for
national development, the Project explores a wide range
of problems besetting Africa today and outlines possible
alternatives to the prevailing development models which
have proved to be inadequate.